Yu Zhuying just inked a deal to wholesale abalone to a Taiwan merchant, who is just one of her expanded list of clients recently.

Yu, chairman of the Pingtan Lanshun Fisheries Ltd Co, said the expansion of her business is attributable to the growth of the Pingtan Comprehensive Pilot Zone, which was established three years ago as the country's first economic pilot zone opening up to Taiwan.

"Since July, several batches of abalone from my company have been shifted to Taiwan by the cross-Straits ferry Haixia and then exported to Japan, all within one day," said Yu, who has been in the aquaculture business for a decade.

As Pingtan embraces a bright future of development, Yu registered another company that specializes in trade of marine products to meet the increasing need from Taiwan.

Before the wealth of opportunities, Pingtan's aquaculture long remained sluggish despite boasting a sea area of 6,064 square kilometers and rich marine resources, according to insiders.

The output value of Pingtan's fisheries sector was ranked once as one of the top three in Fujian province in the 1980s. But it gradually went downhill in the 1990s. In 2012, the output value of the sector only amounted to 5 billion yuan, and there was only three large-scale enterprises engaging in high-value-added aquatic products processing.

Wen Caimao, an official from the local fisheries bureau, summed up the reasons as bad traffic, scarce financial support from the government and the dispersion of private capital due to the rise of the shipping and tunnel sector.

Before the opening of the Pingtan Haixia Bridge, a bridge across the Haixia Strait linking Pingtan and Fuqing, in 2010, cargo transportation between Pingtan and the outside world relied solely on ferries, which was expensive.

To ship a batch of containers from Fuqing to Pingtan and then back to Fuqing cost more than 4,000 yuan, which almost matched the profits, said Fu Xuelin, a chairman of a local aquatic product processing company.

The flourish of the tunnel sector and shipping sector also attracted a big chunk of private investments, while a fair amount of fishermen quit aquaculture due to its high cost and low return, he added.

However, things started to change in recent years as traffic conditions improved and the government mapped out a series of favorable policies for Pingtan.

In 2010, the Haixia Bridge was constructed and put into operation, linking Pingtan and inland Fujian for the first time. The next year, the Haixia ferry was launched and authorized to transport passengers and cargo between Pingtan and Taichung, which helped to expand Pingtan’s aquaculture market to Taiwan.

The government, at the same time, planned to revitalize the industry as it put aquaculture as one of the seven major sectors Pingtan will focus on in a development outline in February.

The effect was immediate and positive as Pingtan's aquaculture industry started to take off again, especially after it absorbed advanced technology and management experiences from Taiwan counterparts.

The two sides have strengthened cooperation in the industry and signed a number of relative deals, according to Yang Tianping, director of the Pingtan aquaculture technology station.

"We will build big-name enterprises in the field of aquaculture products processing. It is the only way to help us stay in the competition," he said.